Skip to main content

Benvenuto Pizza and Italian Family Restaurant, Stroudsburg, PA

Date: 05/11/2017
Location: Stroudsburg, PA
Pizza Ordered: Plain and Pepperoni
Phone Number (in lieu of website): (570) 421-2584

My friends and I stopped at Benvenuto after several hours of hiking in the Delaware Water Gap park. It's a small pizzeria on a fairly busy street. There's plenty of indoor seating and available meter parking on the street. The service was okay and the staff seemed friendly enough. We got a few garlic knots to share and everyone got some slices. The garlic knots were superb and very flavorful and fluffy. The sauce was also very good. The pizza, however, could have been better. There was a clear over-reliance on oregano and Italian seasoning to cover the lack of flavor. The base wasn't very crispy and seemed slightly undercooked and gummy. The pepperoni was oily and wasn't really great (but perhaps I'm just used to more crispy, spicy pepperoni). The crust lacked imagination and flavor, not being well defined as crispy nor fluffy. It was somewhere in between. I wish the same sauce I had for the garlic knots was more liberally applied to the pizza as it would have made up for some of the deficiencies.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Italy's Restaurant & Pizzeria, Phillipsburg, NJ

Date: 6/21/2019 Location: Phillipsburg, NJ Pizza Ordered: Plain, White, and Sicilian Website: https://italysrestaurant.com/#home Italy's is a small local pizza joint that has the appearance of your typical neighborhood pizzeria. Lovely paintings of Italy adorn the walls and the atmosphere is warm and inviting. I was extra hungry, so I went with my usual plain slice and added a white slice and a Sicilian slice. The meal came with complimentary bread that was pleasantly fluffy and had a good mix of herbs and spices on it. The plain had pretty decent sauce and cheese and the charred crust was good, but a bit burnt in some places. The white was very fluffy with a good helping of cheese. The square slice had really great sauce and parmesan and a nice amount of fluff to the base. Overall, I would say Italy's puts out a good average slice of pizza.

Star Tavern, South Orange, NJ

Date: 7/25/2017 Location: South Orange, NJ Pizza Ordered: Plain and Works Website: www.startavern.net/ Star Tavern is a busy bar and pizzeria in South Orange, New Jersey. There is some parking at the actual building and there is a lot next door with additional parking (which you'll need to use if you go around dinner time). The wait staff is very helpful, polite, and works quick! The atmosphere is very cool and somewhat retro but also quite noisy as you'd expect a popular bar to be. There are arcade games, booths, plenty of posters, neon signs, and a bar seating area. The pizza is fantastic. Star Tavern has some of the thinnest crust I've ever experienced on a pizza. The base was super thin and pleasantly crispy. The ingredients were all delicious and I find myself agreeing with Pete Genovese when he calls this the gold--standard of thin crust pizza in NJ. Just remember that because the crust and base is so thin and because the pizza tastes so good, you'll likely ...

Il Forno Restaurant, Branchburg, NJ

Date: 12/15/17 Location: Branchburg, NJ Slices Ordered: Plain and BBQ Chicken Website: ilfornorestaurant.eat24hour.com/ Il Forno Restaurant is tucked away in a small shopping mall by NJ-28. There is ample parking and a good amount of seating inside the restaurant. The decor and atmosphere are reminiscent of an Italian marketplace given the painting and the lights hanging from the ceiling. The staff was very nice and polite. The plain slice, while not appearing to look as appetizing as other pizzerias was actually quite fantastic. It had okay cheese, good sauce, and an excellent crust. The crust was pleasantly fluffy and definitely enjoyable. The BBQ slice was alright. It was light on the BBQ sauce, but overall the chicken and onions were decent, albeit lacking in flavor.